Game Theory: Do We Need Criticism?

Posted on 21. Jan, 2010 by James Dilks in Featured, Gaming, Opinion

Over the last few years, blogs and websites on the internet have begun to define themselves as ‘critics’ of games, rather than simply reviewers or writers on the subject. It’s a muddy area, and an interesting one, because this self-imposed dichotomy is just as inconsistent as in other media. A film critic writes reviews of films. Book reviews in broadsheet newspapers are often written by academics, critics in their field. There is an interesting perception that games (and, I’d suggest, games writers) have an inferiority complex about this. The currently accepted idea seems to be that reviewing is reactionary; a summary of a game’s strengths and faults, published quickly after its release. And criticism is seen as more considered; a personal or cultural assessment of the game’s impact and influences. Reviews are for people who are considering buying the game, criticism is for those that have played it and want something to think about.

The urge to disassociate yourself from what boils down to a buyer’s guide is understandable. But in trying to move away from reviews and towards criticism, these writers have come upon a third place. Criticism of other media works because academic culture has been built up slowly around them. For every blogger about books there’s a Literature professor who is given the time and money to write books on the subject. Games just don’t have that power yet. I think it is something that can’t be forced, and that overreaching isn’t the way to let it evolve naturally.

Bioshock’s story and scenario has inspired much pseudo-intellectual debate.

One early example of this overreaching goes back to Ubisoft’s Clint Hocking’s blog post about the dynamic between Bioshock’s story and its gameplay, which introduced us to the rather preposterous term ludonarrative dissonance. As pompous and unnecessary as this phrase truly is, it’s worth explaining for two reasons. Firstly, the article makes a good point about the contradiction between what you’re told and what you actually do in the game, regardless of its own clever comment on the linearity of the medium, and secondly because of the painful irony of this useless phrase inspiring a lot of discussion.

Modern Warfare 2’s civilian-shooting scene was one of the talking points of 2009.

If you’re new to the idea of games criticism, a good place to start is Critical Distance, a site that attempts to sum up critical writing on games each week. It’s often an interesting and thought provoking resource, although a lot of the same writers do tend to pop up. This is unsurprising, and at this stage forgivable, because since Hocking’s article the amount of writing that has called itself criticism has ballooned. Each article you read will be on a site with links to 15 others, each of whom will have 15 links to other blogs, and so on ad infinitum.

There’s nothing new in suggesting that the internet is in need of some quality control. But here the trouble is that anyone with a passing interest can be put off by the bottomless pit of writing; they need someone to filter out the chaff otherwise they risk being overwhelmed. Even worse, the barely read outnumbers the well-read by a large margin. But a matrix of hit counts against the quality of writing would see a pretty even spread. Thus start, end and all points in-between become necessarily arbitrary.

A site that calls itself Game Critics is a typically untypical example. It seems like it has a decent readership and has a team of writers who for one reason or another have decided that they’re as qualified as anybody to write games criticism, while unselfconsciously calling it that. Unfortunately their game reviews – very similar to those who don’t call themselves critics – are more prominent than any of the pieces of writing that I would consider interesting or critical. When you find them, Game Critics features three major types of serious writing about games. Firstly, the ubiquitous games-as-art discussion rears its inevitable head. The problem is that it’s hard to say much new on the subject, so discussions tend to spiral into unending banality. Once you’ve heard one ‘games are fun, that’s it’ response to one well-argued ‘look at the possibilities of the medium’ piece, you’ve heard them all. Second, the formalist approach has the potential to be a useful tool. Essentially, looking at games as they are, a separate medium, and analysing their content without cloying social context (essays that face interactivity against narrative drive, or a history and dissection of boss battles are two recent Game Critics examples). Finally, there are articles aping study on other forms and applying a whole host of sociological issues to games. The provocatively titled ‘What if Mario were a Jew?’ piece forgets to ask ‘Who’s to say he isn’t?’ and it’s worth reminding ourselves that many videogame avatars are left somewhat blank so the player can project themselves onto it.

Consider this an attempt to introduce the concept of games criticism, and as a jumping off point for a series of articles that I hope will cover more than a few branches of this new and intriguing tree.

Next time: The factors that can spark criticism on some games, but not others.